''Environmental Station Alpha'' is a 2015
Metroidvania
Metroidvania is a sub-genre of action-adventure games and/or platformers focused on Nonlinear gameplay, nonlinear exploration and guided progression with a need to acquire key items to enter certain areas. The term is a blend word, partial blend ...
created by
Finnish independent developer Arvi Teikari (known professionally as Hempuli).
Gameplay
The
player character
A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional Character (arts), character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters tha ...
is a robot who must examine a vast
bio-dome
''Bio-Dome'' is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Jason Bloom. It was produced by Motion Picture Corporation of America on a budget of $8.5 million and was distributed theatrically by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.
The film was inspired ...
space station
A space station (or orbital station) is a spacecraft which remains orbital spaceflight, in orbit and human spaceflight, hosts humans for extended periods of time. It therefore is an artificial satellite featuring space habitat (facility), habitat ...
which was mysteriously abandoned, despite still holding signs of life.
The player explores the vast
side-scrolling
A side-scrolling video game (alternatively side-scroller) is a video game viewed from a side-view camera angle where the screen follows the player as they move left or right. The jump from single-screen or flip-screen graphics to scrolling grap ...
maze of the space station, consisting of several large areas. At the beginning of the game, many areas are inaccessible, so the player must acquire items that grant the robot new abilities (like a grappling hook, the ability to double jump, etc.), and then backtrack to previous areas to find previously-inaccessible paths leading deeper into the station.
Reception
Jed Whitaker of ''
Destructoid
''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017 and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022.
Histor ...
'' scored the game 7/10 and said, "
erall, ''Environmental Station Alpha'' didn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to
Metroidvania
Metroidvania is a sub-genre of action-adventure games and/or platformers focused on Nonlinear gameplay, nonlinear exploration and guided progression with a need to acquire key items to enter certain areas. The term is a blend word, partial blend ...
games, but it certainly helped satisfy my appetite." He praised the game's
pixel art aesthetic and
bosses, writing that "
ese confrontations are some of the most satisfying boss battles I've had in a game in some time"; however, he was less enthusiastic toward the game's mandatory backtracking to find new pathways, which he said could be either "rewarding, or tedious depending on the amount of time needed." John Walker of ''
Rock Paper Shotgun
''Rock Paper Shotgun'' is a British video game journalism website. It was launched in July 2007 to focus on PC game, PC games and was acquired by Gamer Network, a network of sites led by ''Eurogamer'', in May 2017.
History
''Rock Paper S ...
'' also gave the game a positive review, calling it a "''
Metroid
is an action-adventure game franchise created by Nintendo. The player controls the bounty hunter Samus Aran, who protects the galaxy from Space Pirates and other malevolent forces and their attempts to harness the power of the parasitic M ...
''-alike pixel platformer that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, right up until I didn’t any more. And yet, I find myself recommending it." He said that "
e fine balance of ''Metroid'' games is often underestimated by those wishing to emulate them, but Arvi Teikari and Roope Mäkinen demonstrate a rare skill of precision" but wrote that the game was too difficult for his tastes, labelling its later sections as "fiddly and over-complicated."
A
speedrunning
Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and exploit glitches ...
community has developed for ''Environmental Station Alpha'', with the game having been run at the speedrunning marathons
European Speedrunner Assembly
European Speedrunner Assembly (ESA), formerly European Speedster Assembly, is a semi-annual video game speedrunning charity marathon held in Sweden. Held since 2012, the events have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for several charities.
T ...
and
Games Done Quick
Games Done Quick (GDQ) is a semiannual video game speedrun charity marathon held in the United States, originally organized by the Speed Demos Archive and SpeedRunsLive communities. Since 2015, it has been handled by Games Done Quick, LLC. Held ...
multiple times apiece.
References
{{Reflist
External links
''Environmental Station Alpha''at
GameFAQs
GameFAQs is a video gaming website that hosts guides and other resources, as well as an active Internet forum, message board forum. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and has been owned by Fandom (website), Fandom, Inc. since October ...
Arvi Teikariofficial developer website
2015 video games
Action-adventure games
Clickteam Fusion games
Indie games
MacOS games
Metroidvania games
Science fiction video games
Side-scrolling platformers
Single-player video games
Video games about robots
Video games designed by Arvi Teikari
Video games developed in Finland
Video games set in outer space
Video games set on fictional planets
Windows games